Our U.S. Pat. No. 6,883,974 describes a self-contained small-diameter fiber optic cartridge with a protected coil spring. The coil spring biases a body forwardly within a frame. The body is inserted rearwardly into the cartridge frame and the body is prevented from falling out by swaging the rear of the sleeve-shaped body to expand it to form a shoulder that abuts a frame shoulder.
Swaging of the body rear end requires that the body be empty during swaging. After such swaging, a fiber optic cable is inserted forwardly into the body bore, and epoxy is introduced into the body bore to fix the cable in the body. It is difficult to insert epoxy into the body bore when the body lies in the frame. If epoxy gets on the spring or frame, it can interfere with cartridge operation. A cartridge that allowed the cable to be installed in the body bore and epoxied in place, prior to the body being inserted rearwardly into the frame and then latched against forward movement out of the frame, would be of value.